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VICTORIA - Earlier this year, the B.C. New Democrats sounded enthusiastic about oil refineries as a way of creating high-paying jobs and weaning the economy from over-reliance on the export of raw resources.

The view was expressed in the April submission by Opposition leader Adrian Dix and his colleagues to the national hearings on Enbridge’s proposed oil pipeline through northern B.C.

The 11-page letter, the most comprehensive expression of NDP policy to be issued over Dix’s signature to date, recapped familiar objections to the pipeline, including the risk of spills and the company’s failure to properly engage first nations.

But it also faulted Enbridge for proposing to export “high wage, value added jobs” along with the raw material from Alberta’s oilsands.

“The bitumen that will go through the pipeline and be shipped by tanker to China will be unprocessed, meaning Canada is losing out on the economic benefits and jobs that accrue from value-added activity,” the New Democrats argued.

The letter went on to discuss the decline in the country’s refining capacity and noted how the trend extended to the B.C. NDP’s home province.

“In British Columbia, there are only two oil refineries still operating, while five have closed in the past 30 years. Refineries are significant employers, and taxpayers, in their communities,” wrote Dix and his colleagues.

“Enbridge estimates significant person-years of employment in B.C. from the pipeline construction, but these jobs, while important, are only short-term. According to Enbridge’s estimates, the pipeline will create only 78 permanent on-site jobs in B.C. ... There is little ongoing benefit to local economies and small businesses in communities directly impacted.”

All that support for refineries from a party that was adamantly opposed to pipelines and tanker traffic? It did invite a mocking question or two. How were the New Democrats proposing to get the oil from the point of extraction to the refinery gate and then out to customers? The post office? Wishful thinking?

More than one observer speculated that the B.C. party would be hard-pressed to name one place in the province where it would actually support the construction of anything as environmentally intrusive and big-oil dependent as a refinery.

Still, given all those professions of support for value-added oil production back in April, one might have expected New Democrats to utter an encouraging word or two last week when business leader David Black floated a proposal to build a world-class refinery near Kitimat.

But no. “It doesn’t change our position on the Enbridge Northern Gateway project,” said the bald dismissal from party headquarters, issued a few hours after Black took the wraps off his proposal.

Though the refinery would offer 3,000 value-added jobs and relief from tankers carrying crude oil in coastal waters, the release indicated that fears about spills on land now trumped all other considerations for the New Democrats.

Energy critic John Horgan also disparaged the proposal on economic grounds, noting how Black lacked support from the oil industry and was unlikely to overcome the Chinese preference for buying raw resources like crude oil over finished products like gasoline.

“There’s no markets for the project,” he said, “and no access to the raw material.”

Refreshing as it was to hear a New Democrat suggest that resource-development policies ought to be dictated by the marketplace, one would also have to note that is not the party position regarding raw log exports.

Then there was the comment from NDP MLA Robin Austin, whose Skeena constituency includes the proposed site for the refinery. He wondered where the government stood. “If [Premier Clark] was briefed about this and thought it was a good thing, why wasn’t the government there endorsing this? They weren’t.”

I doubt he meant to suggest that projects should be judged by whether the B.C. Liberals support them.

The most telling reaction to Black’s trial balloon came from the NDP national leader, Thomas Mulcair.

“The idea of adding the value in Canada, developing, upgrading, processing, refining, our own natural resources is a good one,” Mulcair said Saturday, when he was asked about a B.C. refinery on CBC’s The House. “That’s what we should be working on together.”

Having reiterated his support for refinery expansion in general, he dismissed the Black proposal for its reliance on the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline or something like it. “The problem, of course, is it goes through some of the most pristine ecosystems,” said Mulcair. “The Northern Gateway I think is a non-starter.”

But he was reassuring on the broader theme of value-added production in the petroleum sector. “So, if we can at least come up with a common understanding and use the highest level of environmental assessment and get the best results, then maybe these things can move forward in other places.”

Other places. Alberta, for instance. Or, even better for the development of Mulcair’s political base, Quebec and Ontario. Just not here in B.C. It’s good of the NDP national leader to clarify the implications for this province of his party’s professed support for oil refineries.

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